If you’re a fan of horror, you’ll be looking forward to the release of a new modern slasher, Clown In A Cornfield – from the producers of Smile.
In a fading midwestern town, the people are terrorized by Frendo the clown, a symbol of bygone success. You get the picture. It’s full of gory kills and scream-filled fun. But what you might not know is that the movie’s director, Eli Craig, lives here on the North Shore.
What does that mean for us? I know I’m prone to melodrama, but all I’m saying is that we should be afraid. Very afraid. I should know, because when I interviewed him about the movie, he casually put on a creepy clown mask, an exact replica of Frendo the killer clown’s face. Apparently he has a whole pile of them in his cupboard, and not only that, but the actual clown, Frendo, lives on the North Shore too, right here in our neighbourhood. He’s been spotted on skis up Grouse. And apparently he likes mountain biking.
Let’s just take a deep breath.
Based on an Adam Cesare novel that won the Bram Stoker Award for horror writing, the Clown In A Cornfield story inspired Craig (co-writer and director of Tucker & Dale vs. Evil) to make a movie close to his heart. He was deeply affected by ’80s slasher flicks, which many of us can relate to. Gen-X kids watched Halloween, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street. We didn’t have a young-adult library, but instead grew up on Clive Barker and Stephen King books and enjoyed crazy night terrors. It was the heyday of horror, where all the classic tropes are expected and loved (always venture into the basement and never have a car that starts on the first try).
Talking about his creative process, Craig said, “I wanted to make a throwback slasher/horror, with the same kind of self-awareness that Scream had when it first came out. Horror first, horror-comedy second. I’m a big fan of mash-up humour.”
He’s nailed it. I saw the trailer for Clown In A Cornfield when I went to see The Monkey at Park Royal Cineplex. It gives a great sense of what’s to come. A terrifying clown bursts out of a cornfield wielding a crossbow, then later a chainsaw. A teenage girl trying to escape danger doesn’t know how to use a dial phone (“What kind of phone is this?”) giving us a deliciously darkly comic moment. Are you a friend of Frendo? Probably not, unless you’d like an arrow through your forehead.
Music is important to the horror genre, and Craig has used the eerie sound of the Frendo music box to create tension throughout the movie.
“I worked with an amazing composer to create a creepy warped sound built into the score. It becomes a symbol of death,” he said, as he turned the box key for me. He’s right. It made me shiver.
The movie was filmed in Manitoba, starring the talented Katie Douglas (Ginny & Georgia) and a Canadian cast and crew. The director of photography Brian Pearson also lives locally, and production designer Brian Kane is from Vancouver. It’s interesting that a Canadian made film might be inadvertently satirizing America.
“We live in such a dark moment in the world,” said Craig. “It’s important to have darkness and to have humour to bring people out of it. We need to laugh at how absurd things have gotten.”
In the movie, Frendo is a mascot of an established corn syrup company, a friendly face that everyone has loved for years. But now he’s come alive – and he’s going to change things for the worse. In this American town dealing with economic hardship and generational rage, he’s destroying everything in a vicious killing spree. Sound familiar? Remind you of anyone?
Clown in a Cornfield is coming to a cinema near you on May 9. Craig said he “wants to hear the people of the North Shore scream in the theatre.”
When you’re sitting there in the dark, be sure to check below the seats just in case Frendo is lurking. And this Halloween, be ready for trick-or-treating with a twist – at a house near you.
North Vancouver’s Jackie Bateman is an award-winning author, screenwriter, copywriter, and extremely nosy if you get too close. [email protected]
